We’re still working through the debt myths. We skipped a few, because they were about co-signing, leasing cars and such. The one we got the most out of was about car payments. Ramsey states that having a car payment is “one of the dumbest things people do to destroy their chances of building wealth”. He says that the average car payment is $464 over sixty-four months. Then he explains that most people will get a new car as soon as their earlier car is paid for and continue this process for their entire life. Ramsey wrote that if you were to invest that car payment in an average mutual fund from the age of 25 until 65 that you would have $5,458,854.45! Yes, that was over FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!!! Live like no one else, so that later you CAN live like no one else!

The other myth that was informative to us was about getting a credit card to build your credit. Ramsey thinks that the only debt you will ever need is a mortgage and he says that you can get a loan for a house if you have lived right. If you have paid your landlord on time, had a job in the same career for two years, have a good down payment, and your payment will not total more than 25% of your take home pay then you will be able to finance a house.

I wish we had read these books when we were first starting out. I am so thankful that my children will have this knowledge and will be able to make decisions based on what is right, not what everyone else does. I am also thankful that we are still fairly young and can change our patterns.

More Than Enough

We skipped a bit of this chapter as well since Ramsey was talking about single moms and blended families. The part we did read was about marketing. He discussed how the desire for “stuff” has ruined relationships. He showed how we spend so much time watching TV, playing video games, or whatever instead of helping our family, church members or neighbors. I know we’ve said we don’t have time for being with people at times, but we do have time for these time wasters. Now, we are so lonely and desperate for company that is not the case. I hope we will always keep people a priority and reject the trappings of this world.